11 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Tom,

thanks so much for your thoughtful work. I found a passage in Donne, thinking of your poem;"sentences in authors, like haires in an horse tail, concurre in one root of beauty and strength,but being plucked out one by one, serve only for springs and snares." yet.." that here is no treachery nor fidelity, but it is because here are no secrets." -Newes from the Very Countrey

Apart from the beginning, I am fearing for these letters who have very cold heads at this time of year, with no caps on!But you know something Mister Clark, (for me personally) it does make the read that much more silky smooth.It's the age old process how I see such. This thing called life and living.You are a very thought provoking chap. See how you have got the old wheels turning in my brain. Oh my! It is not a good thing! I will be very dangerous now!

Wow Tom, I can't believe it's taken me this long to visit your blog after we ran into each other in Berkeley. Your productivity is blowing me away. It's inspiring. I'm eating up your poems and pictures like some strange food. Thank you. By the way, I've been trying to email you and think I must have an expired address. Will you send me the current one? I have an academic favor to ask. (That's right-- the old letter of recommendation).

I am honoured to be so enjoined, and would never aspire to a higher end than a horse's tail.

Bill,

Thanks, and it's excellent to hear from you. I see your handsome visage in the best company on the best photostreams these days, and am bathed in reflected glory.

SarahA,

Yes, I fear to think what may come to pass if all those dangerous wheels begin turning at once. Age old and silky smooth I had not previously thought to be a common combination, but I will accept a bit of that sort of flattery wherever I can find it.

And as you are the closest noticer of the worried caps vs. no caps inner debate which rages at the dark heart of my poesy-making, I will tell you that here, bringing out the lowercased-ness of it all (life itself, with its way of seeming to go forward, then seeming to stop and rewind itself in in endless oblivious loop) was quite likely the whole point of the exercise.

(Those night animals enthrall me by the way, now that honey badger for example -- THAT is what I call silky smooth... though they are notoriously fierce and one even famously bit Richard Attenborough.. I wonder is there a medal for that?)

Aditya,

Oh no -- I fear that those secretive silkysmooth forest animals of night, bloggers with upper membrane curvature issues causing symptomatic creative numbness, are prone to become dangerous and litigate all over one!

JT,

Great to hear from you. Yes, when we met on Shattuck I was doing some undercover scouting of high end eateries as blog research. In fact I'm giving some thought to changing the name of this blog to STRANGE FOOD. (But as you can see from the above, there can be adverse health effects to this impulsive consumption.)

This is a good poem, very clever how you've changed phrases round and echoed others, it always gives a pleasant effect.

I thought on some advice you gave me, which mirrored that I received from others, about tuning more into my gentle side with my prose, so I've started a story more based in myth and allegory. I'm only doing a small section at a time and trying not to rush it. So there's not a huge amount there yet. Just thought I'd say thanks anyway!!

Thanks P, yes the "twist" was, as in the Hansel and Gretel tale, to leave a trail of crumbs unwinding behind me, so that, once irretrievably lost in the thicket, I could follow the same winding trail on the way out. The crumbs being, as you say, the phrases. The difficulty of course was in having them make at least a bit of sense on the way in to the forest and then again on the way out.

I enjoyed chasing your tale of the nymph and the faun or shall we say the beauty and the beast or the girl and the monster? Psyche and Eros? I can see why the sllnking night animals in my poem made you think of your story. Actually my poem set me off thinking about slinking night animals of a very literal kind. I played around with making a little nocturnal bestiary. The two animals pictured on this post also have separate posts in their honor which you will find above this: Honey Badger and Binturong. I must confess that in reading your tale I could not help imagining your beast as one of those. Please don't mind though, as the thought helped make the piece come alive for me.